LONG POND, Pa. – Highlights of Sunday’s Pocono 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway as the second half of the regular season begins:

WINNER: Martin Truex Jr., taking advantage of a spate of cautions near the end of the race, held on to win Sunday’s Pocono 400 for his second victory this season and second career win at the 2.5-mile track.

Truex led the last 21 laps and blocked a challenge from second-place Kyle Larson on a restart with seven laps to go.

“This is the first weekend in a while that everything made sense, we had kind of a game plan and everything went the way we thought it would,” Truex said.

Truex won at Auto Club Speedway in March, but three crashes have stained his seasonal résumé.

“The things we’ve had to battle back from and keep finishing in the top five are hard to do,” Truex said. “We’ve had more battles this year, more adversity. Last year (when he won the championship), it was almost like we couldn’t do anything wrong. This year we’ve had to work harder for it, but I feel like we’re still right there. We’re putting ourselves in a position to win.”

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Martin Truex Jr, born June 29, 1980 in Mayetta, N.J., won consecutive NASCAR Xfinity Series championships in 2004-05 before becoming a full-time Cup driver in 2006. He won the Cup Series championship in 2017. Jasen Vinlove, USA TODAY Sports

Martin Truex Jr. (78) celebrates winning the NASCAR Cup Series championship with a win in the Ford EcoBoost 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The victory was his eighth of the season. Jasen Vinlove, USA TODAY Sports

Martin Truex Jr. (78) celebrates after winning the 2017 Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway. The win was Truex's second on the season at Kansas, third win in the playoffs and seventh win overall. Denny Medley, USA TODAY Sports

Martin Truex Jr. and his crew, which performed nearly flawlessly during the Bank of America 500 on Oct. 8, 2017, celebrate his win at Charlotte Motor Speedway to kick off the second round of the playoffs. The win was his sixth of the year. Jim Dedmon, USA TODAY Sports

Martin Truex Jr. does a victory burnout after leading 392 of 400 laps -- and 588 miles -- in winning the 2016 Coca-Cola 600. Truex broke Jim Paschal’s 1967 record for the most laps led in the 600 (335). Jim Dedmon, USA TODAY Sports

With a third-place finish at Michigan International Speedway on June 14, 2015, Martin Truex Jr. became the first driver since Richard Petty in 1969 to record 14 top-10 finishes in the first 15 races of a season. Aaron Doster, USA TODAY Sports

Martin Truex Jr. walks out with his team before the 2014 Sprint All-Star race at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Truex qualified for the race with his victory at Sonoma Raceway the previous year. Sam Sharpe, USA TODAY Sports

Following Larson in the top five were Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski. Three of those drivers have won 11 of the season's first 14 races, with Harvick recording five victories, Busch four and Truex two.

Harvick, like Truex and Larson, chose to stay out on the track and not change tires after the late cautions, but he felt an earlier pit stop might have cost him a chance for his first career Cup win at Pocono.

"We lost control of the race on pit road when we didn't come out first," said Harvick, who led a race-high 89 laps. "You win some and you lose some. Racing against guys like that, it's going to come down to splitting hairs and the 78 (Truex) and 18 (Busch) both were really good today."

LOGANO VS. JONES: Joey Logano bumped Erik Jones, sending him into a spin on a crowded restart with 10 laps to go, causing another caution.

STAGE ONE: Martin Truex Jr., master of stage racing during his championship run last year, scored his third stage win this season, leading the first 50-lap segment. He outran Kevin Harvick to the line by 1.15 seconds. Following in the top 10 were Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski.

Joey Logano ran out of gas near the end of the stage and lost a lap in the pits.

JOHNSON UP FRONT: Jimmie Johnson led laps 26 and 27. Normally, that’s not breaking news, but they’re the first laps the seven-time champion has led since last October at Martinsville Speedway.